Complex and detailed illustrations such as illustrated parts catalogs (IPCs) and other technical drawings are commonly depicted in a hard-copy form including of multiple pages of drawings. Alternatively, separate drawings may be depicted in electronic graphic form. These drawings may contain large amounts of information regarding the parts they depict or graphics, and the connections and relationships among the parts. Some of the information contained in the drawings or graphics may be explicit, such as labels or other text. Other sources of drawing or graphic information may be implicit, such as the symbols or configurations.
When a user desires information concerning a specific part depicted in drawings or graphics, the user may be required to manually search through each page of a large set of drawings or an IPC, either on paper or on-line. For example, in industries that depend on complex technical drawings, manuals and IPCs for information about its systems, users may be required to manually search many pages of drawings or IPCs before they can perform maintenance or troubleshoot the system. This may be an undesirably lengthy process in instances in which the user must study the drawings or graphics to determine the way in which the drawings relate to each other and ensure he has all the drawings concerning the particular part of the system at issue. For instance, a part from one drawing or graphic may also be depicted on one or more of the other drawings or graphics. Thus, the drawings or graphics may have multiple references to the same part, both graphically and in the textual information associated with the part. Searching the hard copies of the parts catalogs and/or manuals to find all of the graphical and textual references to a specific part may be difficult, tedious and time-consuming because of the massive amounts of information they contain.
Therefore, may would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.